For Sunday, July 13, 2014 – Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
Varied is the ground of our being. Much of the soul’s soil is packed hard on paths of worry and hurry as we pace from one cause to another, one appointment to another, one bill to another, our brains plodding the same old anxious grooves. When the seeds of a new idea, a fresh perspective, a creative impulse, come—and oh, my friend, they do—are we apt even to take notice, let alone act, before they are gobbled up by the familiar urgencies that make their endless rounds?
Other soil eagerly envelops fresh seeds, forever craving the new project, the provocative idea, the sizzle and dazzle of the untried. How alluring, the sudden blossoming of new endeavors! How clever and intelligent we seem as we promote topics we have barely studied but about which we have astute opinions. See how we gravitate toward being respected and admired? The adrenaline spike of the new suits us well. Please, not the slow deepening of roots for us. Not the dark anonymous soil of the soul.
Can we not have it all—the hard-packed, trodden familiar of our busy lives and the soil that yields fast splashes of beauty and is a good host to the thorns of self-preservation and wealth? Surely the rich humus of the spirit that God desires for us can be added gradually, a pleasant modification of our life. But no. The realm of which Jesus speaks requires a more radical renovation—totally new soil. Richness beyond compare, yielding a different bounty. Soil that consumes and renews. Soil that endures.
